The Massive Grid That Is Phoenix

Phoenix: the last stop before home.  And it's hotter than the blazes here.  Seriously.  It's like 100 degrees still in Arizona.  And I thought New Mexico was hot!  I hear report that it's a balmy 80 degrees in NM and I am looking forward to experiencing that before the cold sets in a month or two later.  I almost want to give all my closing thoughts right now, but first let me tell you about Phoenix, and I'll put a wrap on it all once I actually get home.  Sound good?  Brilliant.

So I got in to Phoenix Sunday night & got to hang out with Lindsey and her roommates & study buddies and make dinner for them, but the next day they were all back at med school taking tests and listening to lectures and stuff.  I, however, being neither that smart nor that motivated, spent the morning sleeping in and taking my time eating breakfast.  I even put on a movie (Becoming Jane; not the best movie for a variety of reasons, but cute nonetheless) and generally just didn't bother to rush.  The only thing I had to do on Monday was write my blog, so that's what I did.  First, I made a stop at In-N-Out for a late lunch (because like any self respecting New Mexican, you can't pass an In-N-Out without eating at it) and then after I went to Starbucks with my computer, got a massive cup of iced coffee (Phoenix is far to hot to drink hot coffee in the middle of the day in September), and spent the next hour or two writing that last blog post.  (Incidentally, I never would have thought that blogging would take so much effort and time but it does.)  

After my run at Starbucks (I have had an obnoxious amount of Starbucks on this trip, haven't I?), I ventured over to the Target that was in the same parking lot.  Now I can't really remember why I was going to Target, but I ended up buying a few things (necessary things, maybe?) and then I was off to the grocery store again.  Lindsey and her study buddies are far too busy with all their studying to make dinner.  So I offered for the second night that I was there to cook for them!  Lindsey seemed very excited about this arrangement.  I went to the grocery store to get all the fixings for dinner (ground beef, potatoes, tomatoes, corn, beans, and other veggies all sorta stewed together... like Texas Chili but without the chile....) and headed back towards the house.

Lindsey & her roommate beat me there, apparently they had gotten out of class earlier than expected, and they were starving.  I immediately started cooking, frying potatoes, browning the beef, chopping veggies, and eventually throwing it all together into a big pot where I let it stew for a few minutes.  And it was delicious.  I needed a little big of a kick, so as a garnish I put fresh cilantro and fresh jalpenos, and served the stew (stuff) with tortilla on the side.  Dinner was well received, and I had made enough to feed an enormous army.  But it was Monday Night!  How I Met Your Mother was premiering on CBS that night!  We all huddled on the couch and barely managed to get the station on Lindsey's TV (but only if we all sat very still on the couch and didn't get too close to the tv... it's rather temperamental).  And it became a tv night after that.  How I Met Your Mother, Two And Half Men (never liked that show, but we all wanted to see what all the fuss was about Ashton Kutcher being on it), and 2 Broke Girls.  If you are a server, I would recommend 2 Broke Girls.  I was laughing my head off, but Lindsey didn't seem to think it was that funny; I'm guessing it's because she's never worked in a restaurant.  But I digress.  Before bed, Lindsey & I got to do a little more talking.  I got to play the guitar a little more, and she painted her toe nails and told me all about the stuff she's learning in med school.  It's genuinely incredible how much doctors have to learn.  I am in awe.

Then it was bed time.  I slept like a rock once again. (I think I'm just in a constant state of exhaustion right now.  I reckon that'll last til I'm home.)  That morning, I was lazy once again.  Well, sorta.  Shower, cleaned up some dishes, ate some left overs, watched some TV, folded my bedding, that sort of stuff.  And I was off. I was to spend the next two nights with some of my friends just south of Phoenix, in Gilbert.  BUT, I had to stop at H&M first.  I've been trying to shop at an H&M this entire trip and every time I've been near one, I haven't had the chance.  I got hooked on H&M when I lived in England and I was dying to get some of their clothes.  There's 2 H&M's in Scottsdale, which was kinda on my way, so I stopped there.  I was in all my glory!   Clothes everywhere!  I decided not to really hold back: I'm only on vacation for a couple more days! (To be fair, my version of "not holding back" is still fairly conservative.  What can I say? I'm my my mom & dad's daughter.)

My H&M craving satisfied, I was headed toward Gilbert, AZ, about half an hour south of Scottsdale.  I was going to stay with my friends Gavin and Amanda and their little 6 month old daughter, Molly.  They lived in Albuquerque until a few months ago, and I was very excited to see them!  Molly is super duper cute.  She has a big toothless grin that's just too cute to describe.  I rolled in to their house at about 2pm, and got to say hi to Amanda and her mom (they're staying with her parents while they get settled here) and Molly.  It was really really really nice to see them.  As awesome as it is to have friends all over the country that I can stay with, I miss having all of those people in Albuquerque.  

That afternoon we spent chatting and playing with Molly.  Gavin got home from work not too much later, and we went out to dinner at Joe's Farm Grill.  It's this little restaurant in Phoenix that is attached to it's own little farm.  All the vegetables that this restaurant servers are grown right there on that farm, so the menu changes with the seasonal vegetables.  Most of the seating is outside on picnic benches.  And the place was packed!  It was also delicious.  Amanda got a pretty tasty vegetable pizza, Gavin got a tuna sandwich (ew), and I got a burger (no wonder I've gained weight on this trip!).  We also split some of the best onion rings I've ever had and a side of fried zucchini.   All was very good.   That night we came back to the house, they put the baby to bed, and we watched Saving Grace on Netflix.  Also good! 

Today was relaxing as ever.  Well, for me at least.  Molly didn't sleep so hot, so neither did her parents, but I slept like a baby on the 21st bed of this trip (yikes).  This morning I got to have a nice chat with Amanda's mom, she's lovely!  And Scottish!  And then it was time for me and Gavin to make pancakes (Amanda was still sleeping)!  They were not the most awesome pancakes ever (the search is still on), but 4 cups of coffee later we were able to call it a very nice breakfast.  That afternoon we went to IKEA.  This was highlight #1 of the day.  IKEA is the most awesome thing in the world.  Well maybe not the most awesome thing, but just about.  We walked around, got a little food, and I bought a handful of colorful picture frames to put pictures of this trip in!  (Did that sentence make sense?)

We came back to the house for a little while, Molly got a nap, and afterwards we set out for dinner at the Cornish Pasty Co!  More familiar things from England!  The last time I was in Phoenix we went to this place and it's exactly what the title says.  It's a place where they sell genuine Cornish Pasties.  (Remember the pasties I was trying to make in Dallas w/ my cousin?  Yeah, this is the proper version.)  I got a lamb & mint pasty, and some hard cider.  So delicious.  (I've had a great deal of delicious food on this trip!).  

And that was today.

Sorry this blog was very parenthetical, and a bit short, and pictureless!  But I'm running out of steam!  I promise to have one more blog once I'm home to put a nice pretty bow on this trip, but before that happens, thank you all for reading!  See you this weekend when I get home!!

Los Angeles: A Prettier New York.

Well we had made it safe and sound to Newport Beach.  Brie and I were sharing a bed on the floor of a beach house and nothing could have been more awesome.  The mattress was actually a queen sized Love Sac (I didn't know they made mattresses!?) and it was super comfy, except for one thing: I was on a slant by the end of the night, slowly rolling off of the mattress toward the floor which, fortunately, was only about a centimeter below the mattress.  But there I was, all slanted falling off of the bed.  In spite of this, I still slept quite well, and the next morning it was time to do exciting things like, drive to LA!

Los Angeles, or more specifically Hollywood, is about an hour north of Newport Beach.  Brie and I lazed around a bit in the morning, we had originally planned on leaving the house by 10am so that we'd be in LA by about 11 and then we could walk around.  See, we only had one thing planned: we were going to go be part of the studio audience for the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson on CBS.  Craig Ferguson (for those of you who don't watch his show) is the funniest (in my humble but very correct opinion) of all the late night talk show hosts.  Maybe its because most of his comedy is stream of consciousness so it makes sense about half the time, but the beauty of it is that he can get stuck on something and just run with it.  Anyway, the best part about Craig is that he's Scottish!  And that accent is the best!

Anyway, during our drive to Las Vegas, Brie and I had managed to procure tickets to the show (they were free which is even more awesome) and we were supposed to be there by 2:15 to park in the CBS parking lot, and then the show was to start taping at 3.  That morning, intending to leave early & walk around Hollywood before going to the show, we instead slacked off, took our time getting ready, got some lunch, walked on the beach, and THEN headed into LA with all its fast traffic and hundreds of highways.  (We also watched the Pixar short "Mater & the Ghost Light" no less than 7 times with Brie's cousin's little 3 year old boy who affectionately calls it "Mater & The Toast Light".)

The drive wasn't nearly as bad as I had expected it would be.  I was assuming there would be traffic, but it was so strange, again, despite the hundreds and hundreds of cars EVERYWHERE, there was no delay!  It's incredible!  We made excellent time, and arrived at the parking lot at 10 past two only to find that it was completely full and we'd have to flip around and park in a parking structure just one block away.  No problem, but now we'd have to pay.  Fortunately, it wasn't that expensive, so we parked my car in the garage, walked to the studio, and got in line with another 50 or 60 some odd persons who were also waiting to see Craig.  We had to wait outside for a while before they let us in to the actual lot.  And then it was checking tickets, ID's, bags, and we even had to go through a metal detector.  And then it was more waiting.  We got to hear the warm up guy, though.  His name was Chunky.  He was actually pretty funny.  But we all actually wanted to see Craig!

Finally, we were taken up to the studio.  It's a teeny tiny thing.  Only seating about 100 people.  It looks like a tiny black box theatre.  And CBS television studios isn't this big elaborate building, but rather a very functional  work space.  The "On Air" light above the studio was duct taped together, there were normal looking cords, cables, and lights all over, the seats weren't plush, but rather very functional studio seats, the set wasn't elaborate, just a simple desk & chairs on a rolling platform, and yet in spite of it all, it was just this side of magical to me.  LA was one of the places on this trip that I was looking forward to the most because I want to be in film.  Or at least I think I want to be in film.  And to get to go be part of a studio audience and go to an actual network television studio and walk & look around was oddly affirming.  It was fun to watch television get made, however unimpressive it seemed to be.  I don't know if any of this is making sense, but the magic of television was impressed upon me.  I want to be a part of it.

But as for Craig himself, he comes running out of his dressing room, and does his monologue to the camera and it's all very very funny.  He's indignant, he's funny, he's observant, and he's just a great performer.  And after his monologue, when they broke to change the set, he found out that it was one of the page's last day, and so he brought him on the show (spur of the moment) and let him get his 5 minutes of camera time.  His for that night was Sigourney Weaver, who is an absolutely excellent actress, but (it pains me to say this) a bit of a boring guest!  She didn't have anything too impressive or funny to say, and you could tell that Craig was working hard to get it to be as funny as possible (he succeeded).  But right before she was about to walk off stage, Craig tells her that he's got $50 in singles for her if she can answer one random trivia question.  He asks, she doesn't know the answer, he tells her the answer, she repeats it, and he makes a big (very funny) show of congratulating her on the right answer and gives her the money.  Smiles all around, and then a break.

So they stand up, and she's about to walk off stage when she asks Craig if she can throw the money to the audience.  He looks at her like she's crazy, but he suggests that rather than causing a stampede over $50, that she give the money to the page instead.  So she does, but just before she does, she keeps $1 for herself, and then randomly hands $1 to me!  What??!  Yep, Sigourney Weaver just handed me a dollar.  Why? Because I was in the front row.  That's the ONLY reason.  And it was awesome.  Straight up awesome.

So she walks off stage, and that part is done, and just before we begin filming the next part, Craig finds out that he doesn't have another guest for this show.  So instead, he talks quickly to the producer, he runs off stage, changes his suit, and tells us that he's going to a monologue for a show sometime in October (Oct 26, to be exact).  So minutes later, he comes back & does another (very funny) monologue, referencing stuff that's just happened an hour ago as though it was a month before.  I now have more respect for that man and his humor.  All in all, the experience was very very fun.  Look for me and Brie on the Oct 26th episode of the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson.

hollywood blvd

kodak theatre

After the show, we went & got my car and drove up to Hollywood Blvd.  This was really the only other thing that I had wanted to do in LA.  We parked my car in the parking garage under the Kodak Theatre (awesome), and started walking around, looking at all the stars on the Hollywood walk of fame, seeing some cool names and some that didn't make sense and some that we didn't recognize.  We popped into a souvenir shop or two and we were going to go into Madam Tussaud's but it was closed!  But the most random part about all of this is that next door to Madam Tussaud's at Grauman's Chinese Theatre, the premier of Abduction (new movie with Sigourney Weaver & Taylor Lautner of Twilight fame) was going on!  So there's photographers everywhere, part of the street is blocked off, and there are HUNDREDS of teenage girls screaming at the top of their lungs for "TAYLOOOOOOOOR!!!".    It was awesome.  I think I saw the back of his head.  Brie reckon's she saw part of his face.  We're practically movie stars ourselves!

i want one of these someday

grauman's chinese theatre

taylooooooooooooor!

But rather than fighting traffic with all the paparazzi, we decided to get dinner instead at the Hard Rock Cafe.  Brie had never been, so since it was vacation, we figured now's as good a time as any!  And it was delicious. Got some BBQ & salads, and then it was time to find our way back to Newport Beach.  It had been a good day.  We made it back, talked to Brie's cousins a bit, and then it was back to bed.

The next morning was Friday, and it was a cloudy day.  A bit on the dreary side, so we were in no rush to get out of the house.  We played Yahtzee, did some more biking, riding to the end of Newport Beach on those fantastic beach cruiser bikes, got lunch (all you can eat spagetti!) and then rode up to the the other end, got a look at Balboa, and headed back to the house.   The highlight of the day, no doubt, was the frozen bananas.  This is a totally random thing that (apparently) is only here on these beaches.  I had never heard about frozen bananas until I watched Arrested Development, and I didn't realize that it was actually a thing!  All of these little beach food places sells them.  They're literally frozen bananas, dipped in chocolate, and then covered in your choice of (a rather limited selection) toppings.  I got crushed oreos and peanuts on mine.  And it was oddly delicious!  Who would have known??

there's always money in the banana stand!

the tip of newport beach

biking along the beach

When we got back to the house, we decided to go sit on the beach with Brie's cousin Zach, his wife Erika, & their little boy Noah.  Zach decided to surf a little bit, so the rest of us sat on the beach (well, Noah kinda rolled around on the beach and got all sandy & had a blast) while Brie, Erika, & I all had fun talking.  It was a little chilly though, still all cloudy, so we didn't stay out for too too long.  Back at the house after Noah went to bed, the rest of us watched V for Vendetta.  I don't know why, but I had never seen it!  And that movie is remarkable.  I will gladly be watching it again.

The next day was slightly cloudy yet again, but this time it looked like the clouds might burn off.  After another lazy morning, Brie & I took the bikes out to go get burgers for lunch.  We then went to go sit on the beach and enjoy the sun which had decided to show back up.  We took the beach chairs and sat out in our swimsuits getting tan.  But there was a nice little breeze which kept us too cool to realize that we were both (only slightly) burning!  Oh no!  I've got to wear a strapless dress next weekend in a wedding, and I'm slightly pink!  Gotta figure out a way to fix that!  But burn or not, it was very nice to sit on the beach & read.  I really really like New Mexico, but this is one thing we don't have that I very much so wish we did: reading on the beach.  Ah well, I suppose I could read in the park or something, right?  I've GOT to read more when I get home.  That's another of my goals: buy a bike and read.  (not at the same time).  After that, we went over to Balboa Island.  We took our bikes on the ferry, walked around Balboa, and got some scrumptious salt water taffy!

And that was our last day in Newport Beach.  To finish it off,  Brie & I and Zach & Noah (Erika was still at work) went to this little coffee shop/cafe called Alta and got some delicious dinner.  I then tried to bike back to the house freezing cold because the sun had finally set whilst holding a cup of piping hot coffee.  It was difficult but I succeeded!  That night, after Erika got home and Noah went to bed, we watched half of the BBC's newest version of Sense & Sensibility (the book I had finished reading on the beach was a biography on Jane Austen, so I was kinda on an Austen kick), and it was also fabulous.  We didn't get to finish it because we were all far too tired (and it's like 4 hours long), and Brie and I had to be up at 6am the next morning to take her to her flight.

6am sharp my alarm goes off on my phone.  It's church bells.  Erika had to be up for work at the same time and right before she left she commented that the church bells had freaked her out because she didn't know it was my phone alarm.  Oops!  But showered & packed, Brie & I very sleepily packed up my car and drove to Los Angeles International Airport.  By the way, at 7am on a Sunday, there is no traffic in LA.  We made it to the airport with plenty of time to spare, Brie's bag was not over 50 lbs (hooray!), and she got through security in record time.  She was on her way to Phoenix (for a layover before ABQ), and oddly enough, so was I!

I got on the road, and I was exhausted!  I don't know what it was!  I was nearly falling asleep at the wheel and I had only been on the road for about an hour!  This was problem.  I determined that it was a mixture of being up at 6am (something I have NOT been doing for the last 6 weeks), my lack of coffee, and a lack of breakfast.  I decided that I was in no rush to get to Phoenix, so I would stop and get breakfast and coffee at the next available opportunity.  Now, I've been craving pancakes for nearly this entire trip.  I've had them three times: all three were awesome.  But I was eating pancakes way more (and way too frequently) in abq before I left.  See, Mimi's Cafe has some of the best pancakes ever.  And here I was in California, where the highest concentration of Mimi's Cafe's are, and craving pancakes!  Next Mimi's I found, I pulled off and decided to have the best pancakes & a cup of much needed coffee.

Going to a Mimi's in a different state was something I never thought I would do, and if it hadn't been for those damn pancakes, I don't think I would have done it.  This Mimi's was NICE too.  It must have been newer than the one in ABQ because it was a very very very pretty restaurant.  More contemporary, cleaner (it seemed), and seemingly smaller.  I got my excellent pancakes.  The guy looked at me kinda funny when I ordered because I think he could tell I knew the menu pretty well, but they were awesome, hit the spot, and I was back on the road fairly quickly.  But not before I got my Starbucks (Mimi's has notoriously disgusting coffee).  And from THERE I was on my way.  I turned up the music as loud as it would go and I sung with all my heart.  (BTW, Guster makes good roadtrip music.  Haven't listened to Guster?  Check them out, homes!)

And this bit of the road trip wasn't half bad.  Once I had woken up thanks to my coffee & pancakes, I had fun listening to music for half the trip, and the other half, I listened to a seminar on why the Bible consists of the books that it does.  (Fascinating.  If you're interested I can give you the link.)  And then for the last 30 minutes I got to talk on the phone to my dear mother.  I miss her!  (Mama, I miss you & I was really glad we got to talk!)

And then I was in Phoenix.  Well, not Phoenix proper.  I'm in the north west bit of Phoenix, in a city (or is it a town?) called Glendale where one of my best friends in the whole world lives.  Lindsey, however, was studying her little butt off because she's currently in med school.  So I got into town, dropped my things off at her house, and headed over to the Starbucks (where she and her study buddies are regulars) to say hello.  They were deep into studying notes for a test they were to have the following morning so after saying my hellos, I offered to cook dinner for them.  6 weeks on the road and despite that I cook seldom when I'm at home, I miss cooking!  I ran to the grocery store and bought fixings to make some chicken pesto pasta and went back to the house to get settled in and wait for them to be done studying.

At the house I had a couple of hours to kill.  I grabbed Lindsey's guitar and started singing my heart out.  I didn't expect them to be coming so soon (Lindsey told me she'd call me when they were almost finished), so I was singing without any inhibitions at the top of my lungs and in walks her roommate & Lindsey.  I felt like an idiot!  But it was totally fine.  I started cooking dinner, got a little bit of help chopping up the chicken from Lindsey's roommate, and we all had quite a lot of fun talking and eating.  They all looked rather fried and a bit overwhelmed about the test, but dinner was fun nonetheless.  Lindsey and I got to talk a little more before bed.  I always love talking to Lindsey because no matter how long its been since we've seen each other, we're still just as close as ever.  She's one of my best friends, and we haven't lived in the same city for the last 6 or so years!  We used to go to summer camp together when we were in mid/highs school and we had fun reminiscing about that too.  But she had to study a bit more.  We put on season 2 of How I Met Your Mother, and then it was time to call it a night.

And that brings me to today.  Phoenix is my last stop.  I'll be home by the end of the week.  But don't worry, the adventures so aren't over yet!

TALLY:
miles driven: ~7,700 miles
time spend in my car: 123 hours
cities visited: 35
cities slept in: 19
states driven in/through: 27

Driving! Vegas! Nothingness! Los Angeles!

Alright, Vegas time.

We got in to Katie & Jack's house on Monday night.  Dinner & movie and we were in bed by midnight.  About 3 am though, the whole house was awoken by the loudest booming crazy thunder I have ever heard.  And the lightning that was making the thunder was CLOSE.  You'd see the flash and before the flash was even over the thunder would be booming so loudly that your bed was shaking.  And it was constant.  The lightning was super crazy bright too, and it was a really really strange way to be woken up in the middle of the night.  And I loved it!  It was a lot of fun to listen to it for a while, and thank God I was able to fall back to sleep.

So Tuesday morning found us waking up in Vegas.  (Yes, that's what you get for waking up in Vegas.) But we were at Katie's house, she had already headed off to work, and we were getting our breakfast and coffee and showers before we headed down to the strip.  Brie had never been, so we intended to go down there and walk around, see the casinos, maybe catch an exhibit or a show.

We got a late start (big surprise), and on the way to the strip, we found an In-N-Out Burger.  So of course, we stopped for lunch, and it was as awesome as ever.  I opted for the double double and a mountain of animal style fries.  So delicious.  So too much food.  And THEN we finally got on to the freeway to go to the strip.  It was under construction (another big surprise), and I attempted to follow the directions Katie had given me, but I ended up going west on the street instead of east and had to do this roundabout turn around thing.  Thank God I've been driving for the last 6 weeks.  I'm getting good at it.

bellagio

Finally, we had arrived at the Bellagio Hotel and found a parking space.  We had arrived!  And we promptly got lost.  Those casinos are designed to be enormous, elaborate mazes.  It's really quite clever, until you realize that you can't get out.  And when you do manage to find a way out, you're nowhere near the strip!  You're behind the casino, or on the side of it, or something!  Needless to say, we did a lot of walking.  In the casinos, around them, on the strip, wherever.  We had parked at the Bellagio, but we wanted to go to the Titanic Exhibit which was at the Luxor, south of the Bellagio.

@ the new york, new york

We started walking towards the Luxor, passing the New York, New York Casino (my favorite), and Excalibur among others.  We eventually made it to the Luxor, found the box office, purchased our tickets and went into the exhibit.  And it was totally worth it.  The Titanic Exhibit at the Luxor is a collection of anecdotes and artifacts from the actual Titanic, including one massive piece of the actual ship that was taken out of the water and preserved about 15 years ago.  It's the largest piece of the Titanic that they have been able to take up out of the water and put on display.

The entire experience was sobering.  The exhibit is impeccable.  It's neatly laid out, with short explanations of all the artifacts they've recovered.  Dishes from the dining halls, leather bags, combs, brushes, a razor, bits of the ship, money, papers, itineraries, and a whole lot more.  On the walls of each room of the exhibit, there were stories of the people on the ship, some were incredibly tragic about people who were coming to America for a better life and hadn't even intended to be on the Titanic.

Each room was different too.  Some had recreations of the various cabins, some far more lavish than others.  They said that in today's money, the nicest cabin on the Titanic would have cost upwards of $100,000, and the cheapest cabin which you would share with 3 other strangers was a $900 ticket.  It really was the most lavish boat at the time.  The most interested thing about the exhibit's layout was the sounds.  In each room the sounds were different.  The exhibit was laid out to tell you the story of the hope and expectation the Titanic brought to this new industrial world and then it slowly progressed to the shocking realization that it was going to be a massive loss of life in which almost nothing could be done.  So the first rooms had music, happy music.  The next rooms had the sounds of the engines and the lapping of water.  Then it got eerily quite.  See, what I didn't know was that the Titanic crashed on an eerily calm and dark night.  The iceberg wasn't seen until it was too late because there was no moon to shine light on it, and no waves to crash up against it tell the lookouts that it was even there.

Then we actually got to see "The Big Piece" (as it is aptly named).  It's a massive hunk of metal, 6 inches thick.  Brie and I were amazed that something that thick and massive could be ripped apart by ice.  When all was said and done, about 700 people were saved, and more like 1500 were lost.  Scary, but fascinating.

After the exhibit we headed back onto the strip.  I decided that we should walk down to the sign at the south end of the strip that says "Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas", so we walked.  But it was way farther than I thought it was.  Quite a bit later, we were there, standing in a line to take pictures at this sign.  It cracked me up that there was a big line to take pictures at this sign.  Awesome.

Pictures taken, we started to head back towards the casinos.  Brie's foot was hurting bad though, so we got into Mandalay Bay and took the tram.  But before we took the tram, I got the silly idea to gamble a bit.  You can't go to Vegas and not gamble at least a little bit.  So I sit down at the first slot machine that catches my eye, and I stick $5 in.  Within minutes, I'm up to $10.  Super, I'm winning!  So I cash out, and we walk past a video roulette machine.  I've never played roulette before, but a couple days ago, my friend Hannah told me to bet on Black 24 (if there was one).  So I stick my $10 ticket into this machine, and just for kicks, I bet $2 on Black 24.  And I win.  What!?  I'm up to $45!  So naturally, I cash out.  But I'm stupid, and managed to stick my $45 ticket into the Wheel of Fortune slots and lose half of it.  But I managed to stay $15 ahead.  I'm leaving Vegas a winner.  Hooray!

black 24!

After that, we took the trams back through the various casinos to the Bellagio where we were going to meet Katie who had gotten off of work.  We met up with her and decided that for dinner, we were going to go to Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville.  So we drove across the street, from the Bellagio to the Flamingo, and we had to fight our way through the loads and loads of tourists. Katie commented that she never understood the phrase, "If it's tourist season, why can't we shoot them?" until she moved to Vegas.  I'm inclined to agree with her.  So we get to the Flamingo and we start looking for parking and the sign takes us to this sketchtastic parking structure that looked like something out of a bad horror film.  We parked our car and had a rough time finding the even sketchier elevators, and we all agreed that we'd be moving the car again after dinner.

katie & brie @ margaritaville

Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville is a restaurant that I have passed several times in this trip.  I've always been a bit curious but until Vegas, I had never eaten there.  And I was pleasantly surprised!  Theme restaurants are always a bit of fun, just because they're one of the things you can do on vacations that you can't do in your real life without feeling a bit silly.  In Margaritaville, there's pirates and ship captains walking around on stilts, and there's all the country songs about margaritas and it's 5 o'clock somewhere playing on the tv's.  It's fabulous.  And expensive.  But hey!  It's vacation!  So we splurged; I got a pomegranate margarita and it was delicious.

After dinner, we had decided to go see a Cirque du Soleil show.  I had originally wanted to see "O", which is the Cirque show at the Bellagio.  It's supposed to be quite spectacular and feature tons of water acrobatics.  But it didn't show on Monday nights, and it was crazy expensive, so we opted for "Mystere" instead.  And it was awesome.  We bought the cheapest tickets we could, and when we walked in, since the show hadn't been sold out, they gave us better seats!  We were sitting about 10 rows from the front!  Now if you've never seen a Cirque du Soleil show, let me tell you a little bit about it.  It's some of the most mind blowing performance I have ever seen.  The skill level of the performers is incredible.  It's stuff they've trained their entire lives for, and Cirque puts a theatrical twist on something you would see at, say, the olympics.  It's acrobats, and trapeze artists, and strong men, and gymnasts, and dancers, and clowns, and everything in between.  And with "Mystere" they put it all in this magical world, so the costumes are exquisite, and the performative quality of the show is just mind blowing.  As a theatre kid, I sat there with my mouth slightly open & hardly breathing for the 2 hours that ensued.  The only complaint I had were the 3 drunk guys who were sitting behind us talking the entire time.  Nothing kills theatre like a bad audience.  So 3 drunk guys, what I have to say to you is inappropriate for this blog.  That is all.

All in all, Cirque was awesome.  But it was getting late & Katie had to work in the morning.  Brie and I decided that before we got to our car, we'd watch the Bellagio fountains.  So Katie dropped us off, from the road, in front of the Bellagio & we got to watch the absolutely gorgeous fountains set to "Luck Be A Lady" (how fitting!).  And then it was time to go home.  We got back to Katie's house and we were both out like lights that night.

bellagio fountains

vegas is pretty at night

The next day would be off to California, a lovely 300 mile drive to the west. And it was a rather boring drive. There's not a whole lot of scenery between Las Vegas and Los Angeles.  But the drive was short, which was awesome.  We made pretty good time, about 4 hours, and traffic wasn't bad even a little bit when we got to LA.  But that's because the interstates have like 7 lanes!  It was overwhelming for this small town girl, but AWESOME at the same time.  Oodles and oodles of traffic and no backups.  And California drivers are way more awesome than New York drivers.  They speed around and weave in and out but they don't slow down so the traffic doesn't back up.  I could totally get used to driving here.  My aggressive Albuquerque driving is downright conservative for California.

newport beach, ca

So Brie's cousins live in Newport Beach.  Where Arrested Development was filmed!  Seriously, the locations for filming AD are across the street from the house!  I was all excited.  And they live in this super cute beach house.  We're approximately 30 seconds walking distance from the beach.  So when we got in, we said our hellos and almost immediately we were walking along the beach.  While the sand in Florida was this gorgeous white, the water in Florida was all seaweed-y.  Here, the sand's a normal brown color but the water is clear clear clear.  Brie's cousin has a little 2 year old named Noah.  And he's adorable.  At the beach he insisted that we build a sand castle, so having never properly built a sand castle in my life, I set out to try.  And semi successfully too!  He seemed amused at least.  Then again, it's pretty hard to not please a 2 year old.

After the beach we decided to ride bikes (another thing I haven't done in years) along the boardwalk.  You get a lovely view of the beach on one side and a lovely view of these awesome beach houses on the other side.  I was envious of both.  And riding bikes is so much fun!  Everyone rides bikes here.  I suppose it makes sense, but I was all excited.  Now I want a bike.  (I've got an enormous list of things I want to do and get when I come home... getting a bike & riding it is one of them.)  On our bike ride we got dinner as well.  Delicious burgers from this shady little place called TK Burger.  Apparently this place has a little cult following, and after tasting the burger, I can totally see why.

It had been an extremely pleasant day.  I couldn't really believe that in the last few weeks I had driven all the way from Boston to Los Angeles.  I must be crazy, but it was 100% worth the hours upon hours that I have spent in my car.  And I've decided that I like the west cost a lot more than I like the east coast.  That, of course, could change, but I live in the desert so I don't reckon it'll matter even if it does change.

That night, we (fittingly) watched Arrested Development and I gained an even deeper appreciation for one of the best shows that's ever been on television.  And then it was bedtime.

And that's all for today.  I'll tell you about the rest next time.  But *SPOILER ALERT*, Sigourney Weaver gives me a dollar. True story.

TALLY
miles driven: 7,100
time spent in my car: 114 hours
cities visited: 33
cities slept in: 17
states driven in/through: 27

Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas!

I'm baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack!  Not in New Mexico.  Sorry if I got your hopes up!  I mean, I'm back to my blog.  They're getting fewer and farer between, aren't they?  (Btw, my spell check just informed me that "farer" isn't a word.  Oh well.)  But I've just been too busy.  I have little to no time to sit down and type.  I try to catch up, but I always end up staying up way too late or politely excusing myself from company to record all the happenings of the day.  And it takes forever too!  Who knew that writing about the last couple days would take so darn long.  Maybe that's why I've never been too good at journaling.  I always get lazy & then several days have passed and I can't remember what happened on them!  Anyway, all excuses aside, let me begin.

We left Denver on Sunday, September 11.  It was a bit odd being in the car for the 10 year anniversary of the World Trade Center attacks.  It definitely isn't on the forefront of your mind when you're weaving through canyons and mountains rather than being surrounded by technology.  But still.  It's a somber day in our nation's history.  I can't believe its been 10 years.  I remember quite vividly waking up and my mom had the TV on.  If you know my mom at all you know that she NEVER has the TV on.  She told me to watch and we both watched the 2nd plane hit the 2nd tower.  Crazy.  And it's been 10 years.  Crazier.

But the drive was the agenda for that day.  The drive from Denver to Boulder, Utah, in fact.  Betcha didn't even know that there WAS a Boulder, Utah, right?  Well that's because it's miniscule! and in the middle of nowhere!  in the mountains!  And its nestled in the most beautiful mountains that I have ever seen.  They're like supermodel mountains.  But let me start at the beginning.  First off, I've never really been much west of Denver.  And the drive to Utah takes us straight through West Colorado through most of the major ski resorts.  I loved driving on the highway being able to see Vail, and Copper, and Breckenridge in all their summer glory right there tucked in the hills.  It's crazy to see these trails cut into the mountain with the ski lifts running up through them with no snow anywhere!  And these are resorts I would LOVE to snowboard at but have never had a chance to.  But hey, at least now I've seen them.

The drive itself was scenic at first, and then when we got into Utah, it all kinda flattened out.  It got boring.  It was very New Mexico.  It started to look more like the southwest.  Brown & weeds.  But then we turned off the highway.  See, Boulder, UT is located near Bryce Canyon in south central Utah.  So its flat flat flat, and then we turn off the highway into the mountains and all of a sudden its like you're in a different world.  It's hilly at first, then it turns into sheer faces and rock cliffs.  And then you're climbing steadily up a very steep mountain.  And now you're surrounded by aspens, and pines, and all kinds of other trees interspersed with meadows!  And the view from the top left us both in awe.  We each took about a million pictures of the same gorgeous scenery because we couldn't get enough of it.  Brie commented saying that she had originally thought that Utah would be the most boring to drive through.  Boy were we wrong!

So we climb the mountain, and we start to come down it, and we start to kind of see a little bit of civilization again.  But certainly not much.  And then my GPS craps out.  Awesome.  In the middle of nowhereville where I have no cellphone service and very little of this is on a proper map.  So I turn it back on.  It turns itself off.  I turn it on again.  It again turns itself off.  This happens a 3rd time.  I finally give up.  I know basically where I am, and I'm positive of the only other turn I have to make, so I take a deep breath, send up a little prayer, and decide to let Matilda rest for a minute.  I figure, once she's had a moment to think about what she's done, she'll come back around.  And 20 miles later, guess who decided to play nice again!

So Brie and I make it to Boulder and we don't exactly know where the lodge & restaurant are.  I'm fairly certain its directly off of the highway, but not sure where exactly so we just keep driving, and thank God I was right, because there it was on the side of the highway, all quaint.  Hell's Backbone Grill and The Boulder Mountain Lodge.  We park and check in to our room.  It's a monster of a hotel room.  Humongous, two queen size beds, a balcony, and all decorated to look like the mountain lodge that it is. So we get settled in, our dinner reservations at the restaurant aren't for another hour.  We walked around a bit, took even more pictures, and then headed to the restaurant.

We walk in and it's just as awesome as it was the first (and only other) time I've been there.  Its a rather small, but not cramped, dining room fitting with beautiful little tables, wooden chairs, high ceilings with big wooden rafters, and enormous windows to enjoy the view.  Its like being in mountain heaven.  So we go up to the host and tell them that we have a reservation and she starts looking through the book for my name, and it's not there.  Then all of a sudden she says, "Oh!  You're Jen's cousin!  You're table's right there!"  and she points to a table set for 7 with 4 people already sitting at it.  I sort of blankly stare at these people (none of whom I recognize) and they start to smile and enthusiastically wave at me!  So now I'm really really really confused.  I knew we were going to eat with Jen, but who are these people?!  Then one of them says, "You're Jen's cousins!"  And they motion for us to come over.  So I figure, I'm in good company, so we walk over.  They immediately shake my hand and let us know that they're Jen's friends (ooooooooh!) and that they were going to eat with us and hopefully that's ok.  Brie and I both smile and I say, "of course!" and immediately they're pouring us wine and asking us how we're related and this that and the other.  They're all super super friendly, and five minutes later, Jen walks in!  Now our party is complete.  Hooray!

And dinner was amazing.  We started off with a beet salad that was to die for.  I got to taste the vegetarian posole which had real honest-to-God Hatch green chile (fabulous!), and then I got meatloaf.  That was by FAR the best meatloaf I've ever had and will ever had.  And it was served with delicious mashed potatoes and some grilled vegetables which were grown on the restaurant's farm.  Absolutely perfect.  Then it was time for dessert.  There was a chocolate pot (think chocolate mousse, but way better) which was one of the best things I've ever had, and a peach crisp thing that was to die for.  And some decadent desert wine too.  Oh man, I was stuffed.  And I was perfectly happy.  That meal couldn't have been better.  Food & company were fabulous!  Jen's friends were hilarious.  They were all trying to convince me to come work out there the following season (which I'm strongly considering)!  Who knows?

But it was time for bed. 3 hours later, Brie and I were snuggled into our beds, ready to sleep the night away before the next big drive.  The following day we were up somewhat early to go get breakfast, I had delicious blue corn meal pancakes and Brie had some sort of poached egg dish (mine was awesome, she said the same about hers), and after breakfast we headed to my cousin's house where she then took us to see the restaurant's farm.  It's where they grow all of their own organic vegetables.  Potatoes, tomatoes, squash, cilantro, parsley, carrots, and enormous pumpkins.  And two goats!

But then it was time to leave.  We said our goodbyes, thanked Jen so so very much, and hit the road.  The drive out of the mountains was a little more of the same.  But this time, we were driving through bright red canyons.  Enormous bright red, sheer face canyons, with windy little roads snaking through them.  And in the middle of it all, perched on the side of the mountain is a little coffee shop!  In the middle of nowhere (again!) So we stop for a cup of coffee, enjoy the view one last time, and before we know it, we're out of the mountains and on to more flat nothingness.  All other scenery pales in comparison to the mountains we drove though in Utah.

And we were hurtling towards Cedar City.  One of my friends from college works as an electrician at the world renown Utah Shakespeare Festival and so we stopped in Cedar City to have lunch with her, at the Pizza Factory!  But after lunch, Mary was able to show us around town a bit.  She took us into the theatres that the festival uses and even introduced us to the festival directors.  It was awesome.  Cedar City is a pretty neat little city.  Only about 35,000 people (that's less than the amount of people who attended the Rockies game), but beautiful.  Mary said it's cause the Mormons keep it pretty.  She might be right.

After lunch, we were back on the road for the last 2.5 hours of the trip to VEGAS.  Brie had never been and I quite like Vegas, so it was excitement for both of us.  We made pretty good time and got there just as our friend was getting off of work.  We stopped at the Smith's to pick up some taco fixins and then headed to her house.  She lives in North Las Vegas, so the strip would have to wait for the next day.

It was very very nice to see Katie.  It had been a while since I saw her last and it was fun to make dinner, have a chat and watch a movie before bed.  Quite enjoyable.  The next day, Brie and I would be exploring what Vegas had to offer.  But that, I'm afraid will be on the next blog.  I'm currently being anti social and really should get back.

BUT, the next blog promises VEGAS and NEWPORT BEACH.  Tantalizing!!!

TALLY
miles driven: 6,800
time spent in my car: 110 hours
cities visited: 32
cities slept in: 16
states driven through/in: 26

Denver. Its like home. Sorta.

Here we are in Denver!

Denver is lovely. I really really quite like it.  Things are spread out more here like they are in New Mexico.  There's brown intermixed with the green.  There are mountains!  There's the looming threat of snow, dry air, clear blue skies, and laid back people.  I think I like the west.  I never realized just how much I did until I hadn't been here for a while.  Congratulations, America, you're tremendously diverse & I love you for it!

But I digress.

So Brie & I got in to Denver on Thursday, got our military visitor passes to get onto the base (I'm still mad that I look like a linebacker in mine), and came over to Dani & Phil's.  It's absolutely fabulous to see Dani.  It's been a little too long.  I'm not sure I like it when my friends move away; it makes me feel old.  Dani had dinner ready for us already, super tasty pot roast (she's a pressure cooker fiend!), and we all feasted like kings!  After that it was talking, catching up, being silly and generally relaxing.  There was no point in doing anything too crazy, as the next two days would be fun filled, so we got some frozen yogurt (um. yummy!), I went into a used music store and nearly purchased a mandolin, and then we came back to watch a movie.

Dani and I got very distracted playing Hydro Thunder on the xbox (because girls don't play Halo unless they have to to impress their boyfriends), and then we all tried to agree on a movie.  The verdict was Gone With The Wind.  Why? Cause I've never seen it! What?!  True story.  And it's REALLY FREAKING LONG.   But I'm gonna run off on a bunny trail here.  I promise it'll be short.

First, Gone With The Wind is a beautiful movie.  For being made in the 30's, there's a lot of innovation there.  Gorgeous shots, some beautiful acting (on one or two accounts), stunning costumes, and heart wrenching character development.  Yes, the story is ridiculous.  I wanted to slap Scarlet O'Hara silly, but I couldn't help but get emotionally involved in the (very twisted) relationship she finds herself in.  We only made it through 3 of the 4 hours the first night (we had to finish it the following night because it was midnight & none of us could stay awake), but I gotta say it felt more like the complete first season of a TV show rather than a movie.  I suppose film has evolved, but it was so much more episodic than linear.  And then it just ended!  Out of the blue!  It was over!  I think that may have been my only complaint.  But I have no rational argument as to why.  I just didn't like it!

Ok, I'm back.

The next morning, we were in no rush.  Woke up a little late, I tried to write that last humongous blog post, took showers, Dani made us these cool smoothies, and then Brie, Dani & I headed downtown to the 16th Street Mall.  In the middle of downtown Denver, there is a street of shops that is blocked off to all traffic except the bus.  Its just a ton of shops: coffee shops, souvenir shops, clothing shops, chocolate shops, etc.  And in the middle, there are pianos!  Painted pianos!  Apparently it's some sort of art display, but they are just upright wooden pianos that have been painted that are exposed to the elements and are there for you to look at and play.  I tried, but the poor piano was so out of tune (and I don't know how to play the piano... which is totally a problem).  We also got some coffee from some random little shop (mine was yummy; Dani's wasn't; I don't know about Brie's), and then had a blast looking at all the random Colorado souvenir crap that the world had to offer in this delightful little shop called "Only In Colorado".  Highlights included animal shaped hats and "beer bread in a bottle - just add beer!"

painted pianos in middle of downtown

this is my "piano face"

me, dani, & brie at our best

Then it was off to more shopping.  We spend a good amount of time in Forever 21 (half of their clothes are great; the other half, not so much), and we met up with one of our other friends.  More shopping, more walking, and more observation in Denver was on the agenda.  We walked around to another little shopping center called Larimer Square, but we couldn't afford anything on that side, but we had a blast looking around.
  

how do i look in a stetson?

And then, we went to Coors Field.  I've wanted to go to Coors Field forever.  I don't know why, but this was an actual childhood dream.  I love baseball, and I haven't had a chance to see many major league games, so to go to Coors Field and see the Rockies play was absolutely awesome.  Even if the Reds did beat them pretty good because of some little league-esque errors.  We got our hot dogs and beers and had a good ol' American time.  And the Rockies have a kid from Albuquerque on the team now!  He got to bat once, and grounded out to short.  But still.  Represent, ABQ!  Coors Field is beautiful, by the way.  Attendance for the game was just over 40,000 people.  Holy Crap. That night, it was the rest of Gone With The Wind and then back to bed.

coors field

pretty!

'merica!

This morning, we had a bit more of an agenda.  We had decided that today we were going to go to Castle Rock which is south, between Denver and Colorado Springs.  In Castle Rock there is an outlet mall and Castle Rock itself has a quaint little downtown with a pastry shop and an antique store (among others) that Dani wanted to visit.  So we all loaded up in my car (cause its the biggest) and set off.  By this time we had acquired another companion.  Phillip's college roommate had come to Denver for the weekend also.  The five of us jammed into my car and we were off.  45 minutes later, there we were, shopping in Castle Rock.  The economy hasn't been so kind to the poor Castle Rock mall.  The last time I was there, I remember it being quite busy and quite the place to be.  Now there are empty store fronts and the amount of people shopping seems to have diminished.  Sad day.

friends

Then we went to that pastry shop.  The name escapes me (Dream Pastries, was it?), but the food was delightful and the atmosphere homey and inviting.  Then it was on to antique shops.  Antiquing is strange to me.  I don't mind looking at the stuff, most of it really is quite neat, but what on earth am I going to do with it? I can understand if you've already kinda got a theme going on, but I have no theme.  So I let my eyes feast, not my wallet, and that made for an enjoyable afternoon.  Well, that and the gelatto!

this is how (most) girls enjoy baseball

When we got back to the house (Castle Rock was about 40 minutes away), Brie, Dani, and I went off to get my oil changed (this is my 2nd oil change for the trip; I'm up to 6,000 miles!), and then to find the movie for tonight.  We wanted to watch X-Men: First Class, but it came out on video yesterday so redbox didn't have it.  We had to find a Blockbuster Express, and success!  Back for dinner; the master of the crock pot struck again, and we had some lovely chicken.  And a lovely dinner chat.  And a lovely movie.

All in all, it's been a very good night.  And Denver has been a very very good leg of the trip.  Tomorrow, Brie and I head out to Utah.  We're off to my cousin's restaurant in Boulder, Utah.  Check out her restaurant here:  http://www.hellsbackbonegrill.com/ The drive is about 500 miles.  Yeeeeeeeeehaw!

You'll hear from me eventually!

um... sometimes we get silly. no alcohol was involved.

Nearly 6000 Later....

Alright!

Again, no good excuse for why it's been a while, so I'll just jump right in. Well, that's not entirely true. As I write this I have no internet, so I'll have to post it tomorrow when I do, but other than that, I've just been super busy and haven't had a chance to slow down! So let me tell you about it.

So Sunday night I spent in Detroit at my cousin's house. We had originally intended to check out the jazz festival that was that weekend, but when we got home from camping we were entirely too tired. I slept like a rock that night in their basement & in the morning, my cousin & I and her daughter went to this cute little coffee shop called Morning Glory (clever, eh?) for a pre-drive pick-me-up. I got one tasty Americano and Julia polished off her strawberry smoothy like a 2 year old champ. And then it was time to go. But not before I quickly stopped in Starbucks for cup of coffee #2. (The real reason I went to Sbux was to buy a mug that said “Detroit” on it, but then I got sidetracked and ordered another cup of coffee... sue me!)

And I was off! Honestly, I don't remember a whole lot about the drive because it's been a few days, but I do remember one thing: CONSTRUCTION EVERYWHERE. Literally all of the places I could possibly ever want to go were piled sky high with orange construction barrels. Each little site had its own sign reading: “Injure/Kill a worker $7,500 + 14 years”. How cheerful. But here's the catch, I didn't see ONE worker in these sites. No one to injure & get me my 14 years in prison. Nope, just orange cones and blocked off lanes and backed up traffic. And then I remember that Monday is a holiday. So now we just get the traffic backup without the pleasure of any work being done. Hooray! And honestly, it wasn't that bad. And then it got terrible. I was stuck in this line of tremendously slowly moving cars and when we finally got to where it had bottle necked, like any respectable traffic jam you couldn't actually tell what the problem was!

So now I'm flustered. And I have to be in Chicago by 4pm to pick Brie up at the airport. And the nearer I get to Chicago, the more it costs me to drive in both tolls and patience. So I get in to Chicago, and I'm coming in from the south and of course, I'm stuck in semi-rush hour traffic at 4pm. And I'm headed straight into the heart of the city, to one of the biggest airports in the US. Great. And there's construction, and tolls, and traffic everywhere, and we're going slow, but not quite as slow as I thought we'd be going. Miraculously, I make it to O'Hare. And then my GPS becomes useless. Matilda knows how to get me to the basic region of businesses or airports, but once I'm there, her knowledge of parking lots and anything that's not an actual road is next to nothing. So I start to circle the airport in those fantastic loops that airports have for people like me. All the while Brie's plane is slightly late, and she's getting her baggage, I finally find a place to park, and almost as if by fate or a miracle or some divine grace, we end up at the same place, at the same time. Thank you, God!

me & brie

And it's lovely. We're both flustered, she from flying, and me from traffic, but we get everything packed in to my car, and we're back out to fight Chicago's traffic. Except this time, it's not that bad! What? Matilda must know something that I don't know. We shot out of Chicago, going south now, almost as if there wasn't traffic. We make it to our destination rather earlier than we had anticipated, and as our host wasn't actually there yet (she was still on her way home from work), we drove around looking for a Target. I was out of some essentials, so it was a good excuse to go shopping. Then we stopped at Panera Bread for dinner. Brie had never been. I was excited because I hadn't been to a Panera Bread in a couple years. And it was awesome. Except.... they were out of almost everything! Panera Bread's crowning glory is their foccacia bread and they were out! Of that, and a handful of other breads. I really wanted to be angry because I was so tired, but having worked in a restaurant, I had to pull out my sympathy. It sucks when you run out of stuff, and there's honestly nothing you can do it about it sometimes. Bummer.

After dinner, we headed to our hosts' house. In Chicago, we were staying with the sister (and her husband & kids) of one of our good friends from high school. Brie & I had both only met Rachel once or twice so it was a bit strange at first, but she and her husband were both extremely welcoming, friendly and hospitable to the both of us. And their kids were super cute. It really is incredible how hospitable people can be & are. I love it. And I'm thankful beyond measure for it. Especially to house both of us out of the blue for 2 nights. Seriously. Its brilliant.

Extremely tired from our day, Brie & I hit the sack early. Tuesday morning, we got up, took showers, got some oatmeal and (with the help of our host) walked to the train station which was only about 2 blocks away. This train would take us straight into the heart of Chicago's downtown, to their Millennium Park (Chicago's version of Central Park). So we walk to the train station, and we got to the little kiosk to buy our tickets and all three of the machines were out of order! Being a small station, there was no attendant to help us out. Looks like we'd be buying tickets on the train and therefore incurring a surcharge! Well that sucks. So we sit there to wait for the train. It comes on time, we get on, sit on the top (double-decker trains are awesome), and head off to Chicago. When the conductor comes buy asking for our tickets, I told him about the broken machines. He was nice enough to waive the surcharge so we got our tickets for a bit cheaper than we expected. Yay! An hour later, we were in Chicago.

Train stations always disorient me. I can usually find my way around them with little difficulty. I may look like a lost tourist, but I can usually find my way if you give me enough time. What I am not good at though, is figuring out which direction we're headed. New Mexicans are spoiled. We always know which was is East because of the mountains. No other city has that! So we get to the street from the train station, and we immediately start walking the wrong way. But only for about a block. One of the awesome things I've discovered about having an iPhone is that if you've got service, its pretty hard to get lost. My little blue dot on my gps showed me going the wrong way, so we turned around and were set straight.

The plan for the day was simple: walk around & explore. There were only 3 things that we desperately wanted to do: visit Navy Pier, see the Sears Tower, and maybe catch a Second City performance. So first stop was Millennium Park on the way to Navy Pier. The park is beautiful. We didn't explore quite as much as we probably should have, but we found 2 very cool things in the park. The first is that fantastic silver bean-looking thing in the middle of the park. We took pictures. The thing is huge! And people stare at it wondering what on earth its supposed to be but taking pictures because they don't really care what it's supposed to be as long as it looks cool. Then we turn around and behind us is this massive outdoor amphitheater. Also gorgeous!

the bean thing

our reflection in the bean thing!

So we keep walking east, trying to get to Navy Pier & we start to walk along the harbor. There were tons of boats all sitting in Lake Michigan bobbing to and fro slightly from the breeze (which was quickly becoming wind). Despite seeing a lot of water so far on this trip, it still fascinates me. So we walked along the harbor, thinking that we'd soon be running into the pier, but we completely forgot about the little river that runs off of the lake into Chicago which we still had to cross. To cross this river took us about 30 minutes out of our way. Eventually, we made it to the pier.

boats

Navy Pier, as my uncle put it, has nothing to do with the navy. He's right. It's an enormous pier with a little bit of everything on it. You can take cruises off of the pier. There are several restaurants, shops, kiosks and the like interspersed between a sort of gallery, a Children's museum, the Chicago Shakespeare Theatre, and a small amusement park. So Brie & I walked around and looked at everything. We walked all the way down the pier to the edge on the side with all the shops and then made the mistake of walking all the way back on the other side, which is just the backs of all the shops. Oops. And then we decided to eat some food & ride the ferris wheel. It gives you a lovely view of downtown Chicago. Tickets purchased, we hop on and we notice that there's a sign which informs us that it's illegal in the state of Illinois to drop anything off of the ferris wheel. Near the top, you can really start to feel the wind of The Windy City. Not so much that the ferris wheel would shake or anything, but enough that the wind caught the bag of Brie's souvenir and took it straight out of our little compartment! Oh no! Inadvertently we had broken Illinois state law & lost the only souvenir Brie had purchased so far! And as we were at the top, we still had half of the (very slow) ride to go. We get down to the bottom and we see an official looking dude holding a little plastic bag, oddly similar to the one that fell out from our compartment, asking the people who were in the cart in front of us some rather seriously looking questions. Thinking that maybe it was better not to run the risk of arrest & ask if that little bag was what we thought & hoped it was, we booked it out of there, never to see that souvenir again. Sad day.

To finish off Navy Pier, Brie & I decided to try some Fried Dough. And it's exactly what it sounds like. Its dough, that they fry, and the douse in sugar, gelatto, caramel sauce, apple topping, and who knows what else. It was fabulous! And so filling, and so incredibly sugary and sweet. It was like Americanized sopapillas. And then we walked off those calories by walking all the way over to the Sears Tower. Walking through Downtown Chicago to get there was pretty cool. Tons of cool buildings, a statue of Marilyn Monroe, the “L” Train, we somehow ended up in the theatre district which put me just a little closer to heaven, and then we finally saw it. Both of us were wondering if it'd be worth the walk to go to this building but its a monstrosity. And you can go to the top of it. So we did.

fried dough

marilyn monroe 

$17 and 103 floors later, we were standing on top of the Sears Tower overlooking ALL of Chicago. The view was breathtaking. Being from a small city in the desert, two things fascinate me: tons of big buildings and water. And Chicago has both! So we took upwards of a billion pictures, especially on this glass ledge that you can walk out on to and literally be standing OVER the city (its a little trippy). So if you're wondering, the Sears Tower (which btw, is technically now named “Willis Tower”) is totally worth the walk & the admission fee. Go see it if you haven't already.

sears tower (willis tower)

the view

im standing in mid air

And then we walked some more. But this time, just a couple blocks to the L. It was time to find out if we could get tickets to the Second City. What is the Second City, you ask? Well I'll tell you! It's an improv comedy club that is nationally recognized and has turned out the likes of comics such as Steve Carrel, Tina Fey, Jim Belushi, Eugene Levy, Stephen Colbert, Amy Sedaris, Amy Poehler, Rachel Dratch, and the list goes on and on and on and on. I've seen them once before. Their touring show came to Albuquerque a while back and I was very eager to see them again. Brie consented to come along and so we figured we'd take the L up there because we were probably a good 2 or 3 miles away and we'd already walked enough for the week. So we got a little help figuring out where we were going & how we were going to get there and hopped on the train. Which took us to Old Town Chicago. 4 blocks away was the theatre. Its just a tiny little thing, and we got tickets no problem.

<3

And I'm THRILLED that we did. The show was awesome. Absolutely one of the funniest things I've ever seen. And we had great seats! 2^nd row, perfect view of the stage. It was, as far as I was concerned, perfect. Except for one, teeny, tiny thing. The show is actually scripted sketches in 2 acts, but its born out of their improv. So after the second act, they informed us that they were going to do a completely improvised 3^rd act if people wanted to stick around. I thought it was a no brainer to stay, but then we realized that if we stayed, we'd miss the 2^nd to last train back to the house we were staying at, and the last train was nearly 2 hours after that... at 1 am. So we'd be stuck in the train station for 2 hours, and we wouldn't get back to the house until 2 am and then we had an 8 hour drive the next day. So, rather reluctantly, we had to leave the Second City, hop back on the L and then take the train back south to the house. And that was the day... almost.

Just as we're getting off of our last train, it's just after midnight, we're both exhausted, we get off of the train, the doors close, and all of a sudden, Brie turns around and says, “Oh no! I left my camera in there!” And then the train speeds off. Crap. Now what do we do? We pick up the service phone, report the loss, and they tell us that if they find it, they'll call us. But it was the last train, so we were a little hopeful, despite it all. Our host very very kindly picked us up from the train station, and minutes after we got back, it was beditme. In the morning, we packed up, had some more oatmeal, and headed out.

To Omaha! What a tremendously boring drive! You see, we basically drove all the way across Illinois, and then we drove ALL the way across Iowa. And you know what we saw? Corn. And then we saw a semi and some clouds, and then some more corn. And then after that, a coupe hills, and more corn. And then after that. Corn again! Fields and fields and fields of corn. Corn corn corn. Everywhere! All in all, the drive was a bit boring, but it was fun having another person in the car! That's new. It'll take a bit of getting used to! So we listened to Harry Potter on tape, looked at the corn, and continued on our drive making very good time to Omaha.

And in Omaha we were staying with a friend of a friend who Brie had met a few times and who I had taken a class with at UNM. Crazy, right? Like I said, people are hospitable! We found our way to Rachel & Brandon's apartment and she let us in. Brie and I were exhausted so we were a bit boring for the night. We helped making some potatoes for dinner, had a discussion about who Satan is (who knew that most of what we thought we knew may or may not be speculation.... hmmm... maybe I'll think more about that later), and a bit of talking and dinner, Brie and I did the dishes. I'm starting to lear that there's not a whole lot I can do for the people that I stay with. BUT, I can help them do the dishes. Why? Because it takes little to no skill to wash dishes and even less skill to dry them. Also, if you wash, you don't have to know where these dishes go. You just have to wash them. It's awesome.

That night, Brie & I went to Wal Mart to get her a new camera, get some gas in my car for the morning, and then again, it was time to sleep. The next day we'd be driving to Denver, making it a whopping 1000 miles that we would drive in 2 days.

And we were back on the road by 8am the next morning. Starbucks in hand, we were ready for another 8 hour drive. We listened to more Harry Potter on tape, finishing Prisoner of Azkaban (Harry Potter on tape is awesome, btw, if you are wondering. Its tremendously entertaining!) And across Nebraska there is tons more (yep, you guessed it!) CORN! Fields upon glorious fields of corn. It is, afterall, the Cornhusker State according to the rather ugly souvenir mug I purchased at this sketchtastic little gas station in the middle of no where.

300 miles later, there we were in Colorado. Being in Colorado was really really strange. As soon as you crossed the border between Nebraska and Colorado, it was like magic, all the corn disappeared. And it started to look oddly like home. It's very strange to be driving in Colorado now, because we're so very close to home, but we're going right past it. After our stay in Denver, we're off to Los Angles! But Denver first!

Brie & I are staying in Denver with one of our good friends from high school (apparently I have a few of those...). The drive to Denver went surprisingly quick. And I like Denver. Its got a big city feel, but without being too terribly big and scary. The west just feels way more welcoming to me. Maybe its because I'm from this side of the country, but its just a much more relaxed environment. As much as I like the big tall buildings, I like the big tall mountains more. They're more comforting, somehow.

But the long and short of it is that we made it to Denver. Dani's husband is in the Air Force & they live on base, so we had to wait for her at visitor parking. When she got there, we got our little passes & they took absolutely horrendous photos of us for identification. Seriously, in mine, I look like a very fat linebacker. Its upsetting.

And now we're in Denver. This blog is already WAY too long so I'm going to tell you about the rest in the next one. I'm so sorry it's taken me ever so long to write. But thanks again for reading, and with any luck, I'll be blogging more frequently from now on. I'm getting blog fatigue! But it shan't get me down!! Huzzah!

TALLY:

miles driven: <6,000 (woah, nelly!)

time spent in my car: 96 hours (4 FRIGGIN DAYS)

cities visited: 28

cities slept in: 15

states driven in/through: 23